Kiyoshi Mino // Needle Felted Animals

After having to wait an extra day for a grain drill, today we successfully planted all 6 acres of our pasture and cover cropped our 2 fallow vegetable fields! It was all made possible by our incredible new friends and neighbors, Terry and Judy Bachtold. Terry and Judy raise 100% grass fed beef cattle at their farm, Grazin' Acres Farm in Strawn, IL. We got to know them because Terry is our local USDA Natural Resource Conservation Service representative and Judy is our mail lady. We also bought our steer, Number 13 from them. We only met them a few months ago but already Terry and Judy treat us like family, trying to help us out in any way they can. We've also helped them out by looking after their cows for a couple days while they were out of town. However, after all they did for us over the past few days I don't know how we can properly repay them. Terry helped arrange our pasture and cover crop seed order with a local seed supplier, he then found and delivered to us a grain drill (a tractor implement that plants large quantities of small seeds very efficiently) to borrow free of charge, and then spent almost 5 hours helping us actually plant our pasture and cover crops this afternoon!
One of the reasons Emma and I chose this way of life was because we wanted to live in a place where we would actually get to know our neighbors and become a part of a true, mutually supportive community. Thank you Terry and Judy for showing us that we came to the right place.